


From me...

by Kethta



Category: Prince of Stride: Alternative (Anime)
Genre: Heartache, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Saisei, Training Camp, ankle injury, dont hide your pain from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:54:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6580162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kethta/pseuds/Kethta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the match against Ichijyokan Heath's old injury is acting up again. Still he thinks it isn't a big deal so he hides his pain from his teammates. But it keeps hurting even two months later and Kyousuke even notices something isn't okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From me...

It was the day after the match against Ichijyokan. Heath's was sitting in the clubroom of the stride and shogi club and was wrapping up his bad ankle. It was still early, so noone was there except for him. The others were still in their classroom, probably eating their lunch. He skipped lunch to come here before the others. Dull pain was throbbing in his ankle and that time he already knew it didn't mean anything good.

The day before, right after the match he had felt some discomfort in his previously injured leg, but he hadn't payed too much attention to it. It was common for him after a heated match like that one to feel like this. But the discomfort hadn't disappeared ever since then. He felt it all the day, after every step he took, so he couldn't even forget about it. Still he thought it would dissapear, so there was no meaning in telling anything the others. He only wraps it up and it will be okay. He thought so.

When the others arrived he had already finished and they began practicing. He practiced with the others as always, like there wasn't any problem. And there wasn't any. At least he thought so.

However weeks and months had passed since then and the pain in his ankle didn't disappear moreover it got much worse. Instead of the discomfort he felt almost constant, dull pain in his ankle all the day. By the end of their school exams he could barely keep up with the jumps they practiced still he refused to tell his teammates anything about his ankle. He wrapped it up well every day so he could pretend to be okay and cover his problem in his everyday life. Before practice he always arrived earlier than the others, bandaged his ankle and put on an ankle brace too and like that he could survive the practices.

It was like that that day, after the last exam too. He was waiting for the others in the clubroom after having his ankle brace hidden under his socks. When the others arrived they began practicing like always. They were stretching in pais and after the stetching they went out to do some running and jumping. Mr. D gave out his intructions and then the first years ran away. Heath started too, but he thought that this time he would take it easy, so he chose a slow pace. The day before he finally decided to see a doctor after these months of pain and he didn't want him to see an ankle totally busted if possible.

''It isn't like you to stay in the rear.'' he heard a voice after they had finished their running task. He didn't have to turn around to know who is the complaining person, he knew it full well.

''Kyousuke...'' he said after he had gotten face to face with the other teen. Kyousuke's question was really innoncent but Heath could feel something odd in his best friend's voice and that made him uncomfortable in his heart. He had to smile if he didn't want to expose himself and answered a bit later trying to make a joke. "So you're saying I'm slowing down? That's what you want to say?" he jumped to a conclusion and saw Kyousuke sighing. It seemed he believed him.

Heath left early from practice and went to a nearby hospital to see a doctor as he had decided before. He spent there more than two hours. When he walked out his ankle was in much more pain than it was when he walked in (the doctor examined it pretty fully) and was totally shocked. What the doctor said... it wasn't funny. His ankle....

''Heath!'' he heard his name and cold ran up his spine. He turned in the direction of the voice and saw Kyousuke leaning against his bike with recrossed arms.

''Kyousuke...''

''I wondered why you left so early from practice... So you came here.'' Kyousuke said with a cold and calm voice. Heath couldn't say anything in the moment. Until that time he thought he had done such a good job before, so that not even Kyousuke noticed that something wasn't okay. Even at practice he seemed like he didn't know anything. Now it seemed he was wrong. ''How bad is it?'' Heath woke up from the first shock and he knew it was the time to protest.

''What are you talking about?'' he tried to keep his cool, but the other teen's eyes were telling him to cut it. ''Ah, you mean my ankle. Don't worry about it, everything is okay with it. I just went for a regular check-up.'' he said waiting for Kyousuke's reaction. It wasn't late.

''A regular check-up?'' Kuga asked with a mistrutful voice. ''I didn't know you still had to go to check-ups.''

 ''That's because you missed from the club for almost a year.'' Heath said easily, even though what he said wasn't true. He didn't have to go for check-ups since the last semester. ''Just ask Hazumi or Kadowaki.'' It was obviously a bluff, but he belived that he acted perfectly, so that Kyousuke should have believed it. And it seemed so. The other teen stayed silent for a while, but then he didn't show any traces of doubt. It was kind of relieving for Heath, he didn't want Kyousuke to ask the others, because then Kyousuke would know that he bluffed.

 ''I see.'' Kyousuke said lowly. ''Then there's no problem with it?'' he asked and once again he stared straight into Heath's eyes. Heath felt like a huge hand was grabbing his stomach and creased it until it was a small pellet, as he prepared for lying. He didn't want to lie his best friend, but he couldn't help it if he didn't want to expose himself.

 ''That's right.'' Heath pulled off a small smile and Kyousuke seemed to resign.

''Then if there's nothing wrong, I'll go. I still have some tasks to take care of. Bye.'' Kyousuke said goodbye coldly and for a second Heath thought he noticed a trace of sadness in the other boy's eyes but he couldn't really observe it, because Kyousuke sat on his bike then rode away.

Even though the danger was beaten off a strange feeling was pressing his chest. A strange feeling that he couldn't understand and like the pain in his ankle somehow it didn't want to disappear.

In the next few days he kept up his low pace of training and it seemed everyone was okay with it. The only strange thing was that Kyousuke spoke almost never to him. As if he was avoiding him, but Heath tought that maybe he was overthinking the things.

However his ankle didn't want to get better even then. He was seriously troubled about it and really started to believe the doctor, but he still didn't want to expose himelf. The main cause for it was still the shortfall of the members of the team, and he didn't want the others to worry about him. And at last but not least the next day they were supposed to go to a training camp with Saisei and he didn't want to miss it out.

The next day the training camp began in the morning when they arrived at Saisei. There the guys showed Hônan around and in the afternoon they began to work seriously.

The first task was a friendly match between the two teams just to know how they were doing. The lineup for Hônan was the following:

1.Yagami Riku

2.Hasekura Heath

3.Kuga Kyousuke

4.Kohinata Hozumi

5.Fujiwara Takeru

Relationer: Sakurai Nana

 

For Saisei:

1.Mayuzumi Asuma

2.Sanoo Tasuku

3.Okumura Kaede

4.Chiyomatsu Bantaro

5.Suwa Reiji

Relationer: Mayuzumi Shizuma

 

Soon each runner took his place and after the countdown the race started. Yagami took a good start as always but at the end of his part he slowed down... as always.

''Hasekura-senpai'' Heath heard his name from the earpiece ''Set'' their Relationer gave out the instruction ''Yagami-kun is xx seconds down'' came the information, but he had known that before, because his opponet set up earlier. ''3...2...1...GO!'' he set off fast, he had to catch up to his opponent...

However the very moment, when he set off, sharp pain shot up his ankle and he stumbled for a moment, but he couldn't give up. He had to reach Yagami, but with the stumble he fall even more back compared to his opponent.

''Hasekura-senpai!'' he heard immediately  Sakurai's voice. Of course she could see their movements, so she spot his bad start right away. He couldn't answer her, but switched to a faster pace, faster than his normal one, because he had to catch up, he had to reach the takeover zone to relate with Yagami. His ankle screamed in pain, but he couldn't do anything about it, he had to catch up, he had to do it for his team, as a teammate and as a captain too. He soon reached the takeover zone and connected with Yagami, but because of Heath their relation wasn't even close to be called good.

Somehow that time he couldn't care about that, he just wanted to reach the end of his part, he just wanted to end this quickly. His ankle hurt even more with every step and he could barely bear it. Still he managed it and caught up.  He heard Sakurai instructing Kyousuke and almost reached the takeover zone, but he couldn't overtake the runner next to him. He saw the other pair relating, and saw Kyousuke arriving, he just had to take three more steps. Finally their hands connected. In the last second Kyousuke looked at him but what Heath saw wasn't the usual expression of his teammate.

At the same time he reached out to the other teen's hand and touched it Heath felt as his ankle was dying in pain, he lost his balance and fell over. After the fall even the pain was exiled in the furthest corner of his mind, he couldn't think about anything only the expression of Kyousuke. He looked at Heath as he knew something and this something made him sad. Heath could think about a cause for it, but he couldn't believe it. He just couldn't believe that Kyousuke had noticed his injury and still hadn't said anything. He felt some heartache as he continued thinking, but he couldn't define that feeling very well.

''Hey!'' he heard a voice from somewhere far away. ''Hey! Hasekura!'' he heard it again this time from somewhere closer and  recognized it. The voice brought him back from the world of thoughts to the real one. He looked up and found himself face to face with Sanoo. As he racognized the person and the situatuon the pain in his leg came back too forcing him to grab his ankle. ''Hey, you! I was speaking to you! Have you even paid attention?!'' the other boy was upset about him not paying attention.

''Sorry, sorry. I was so lost in my thoughts.'' Heath said lifting up both of his arms. 

''I saw... Anyways what's wrong with your ankle?'' of course Sanoo didn't miss Heath's movement, still he tried to cover his injury.

''Nothing.'' he answered easily.

 ''You say nothing yet you missed at the beginning and now you grabbed it like you were in pain...'' yeah he was right, Heath couldn't protest. ''But it's not my problem. Like I care how an enemy destroys himself, it would only better for me, one less guy I have to worry about of getting in Reiji-sama's way.'' he said easily and shrugged his shoulder.

''Yeah, you don't have to worry about it. Just don't say anything the others please.''

''Like I care. Sooner or later they will definitely find it out.''

 ''I prefer later.'' Heath said and looked up to the  screen where he could see the race. Suga was runnning with Fujiwara already, so it was the last part of the match and Suga was leading with quite an amount of distance. And it was partly Heath's fault. But he shouldn't think about that, but go to the others.

 He tried to stand up, but the pain in his leg stopped him. That was the case for the second and third time too, then Sanoo helped him and they went to the others together. In the beginning Heath was limping just to feel as little pain as he could, but later on he tried to walk normally because they could meet anyone anywhere. As they met up the others the match ended already and Saisei won.

''Where were you this long?'' The others were surprised that they arrived this late, when Fujiwara already caught his breath after that run. Heath looked at Sanoo, who took a deep breath.

''He couldn't understand that they could never win against us as long as Reiji-sama is here so we were arguing about which team is better.'' Sanoo said and Heath was relieved that the other didn't expose him.

Heath tried to catch Kyousuke's eyes but the other teen seemed to avoid him... or he just imagined things.

After the match they went back to take a bath. Heath purposely arrived sonner and stayed longer than the others. His ankle was pretty swollen after the race in the afternoon and the infammation made it quite red too, so he didn't want them to see it. When everyone left he came out from the bath and put some cold water on his leg. It helped a bit, but just a bit. He went limping in the changing room to dress up and there he sat down on a bench. He slowly put his clothes on and searched for an icebag to ice his ankle for a while. Suddenly a hand reached to him grabbing an icepack. He took i away and put on his ankle.

"How did you know?" he asked stilly.

"I know you, I noticed something was wrong." Kyousuke answered. "How long has it been like this?"

"Not so long, just a few days, and now it's like this because of the race today." Heath lied and looked at his teammate once again seeing that one sad unexpliquable expression in Kyousuke's eyes, that made Heath's heart hurt. Still he stucked with his lie. "After a few days it will be nothing but a bad memory." 

"Are you sure?" Kyousuke asked sadly avoiding Heath's eyes.

"Of course. Don't worry about it. I just overworked it in the last few days." Heath said easily and it seemed Kyousuke accepted it.

The remaining days until the end of the training camp Heath felt that Kyousuke was keeping an eye on him and every possible chance Kyousuke asked him if everything had been okay with his ankle. By the end of the week Heath thought that he could finally persuade him, that everything was alright, so there was nothing to worry about for him. Still his ankle didn't get better. Of course, how could it? They were training all day everyday, his leg had almost no time for resting and recovering.  The injury was way worse than before, so he even thought about visiting the doctor again, but later he rejected the idea. They had only one week before the beginning of EOS, so if he had went to the doctor and the doctor would have said that he couldn't run, that would have been a disaster.

After the Training camp they went back to their normal practices at school. After the second day Heath could barely keep up with the tasks, the training camp did some serious damage in his already injured ankle and there were the consequances. After a jump he landed pretty badly on his bad leg and almost unbearable pain started to radiate from his ankle, than he fell over. He didn't know how he managed to get up, but then he asked for a toilet break and as naturally as he could he went back to the clubroom. There he sat down immediately leaning against the wall and took off his shoes. His ankle was throbbing in pain and he had to bit his lip trying to bear it.

"Yesterday you said there was nothing wrong with it anymore." Heath heard a familiar voice... it was Kyousuke of course. "If there is nothing wrong with it then why are you sitting here grabbing your ankle obviously in pain?"

"Kyousuke..."

"There is something wrong with your ankle, isn't there? Then why can't you just say it?" he asked angrily then squatted next to Heath and after putting the injured teen's hand out of the way Kyousuke took off the ankle brace and the bandage. When Kyousuke saw how bad shape Heath's ankle is in he frowned. "With this ankle there is nothing wrong you say? Then I think we have different opinions about >>nothing wrong

"Yeah, you're right. It's bothering me since the match against Ichijyokan." Heath answered, he didn't have any other choise, he was exposed. "At the beginning I thought it would heal, but it just got worse."

"Why didn't you tell us anything?" Kyousuke exploded. "How do you know that you didn't make any permanent damage in you ankle? What would happen if you could never do stride again? Hm? Did you even think about it?"

"Sorry." Heath couldn't say more. "I just didn't want you to worry about me."

"That doesn't mean you can lie to us as you want." Kyousuke said angrily and Heath turned away his gaze. His teammate was right, his decision was wrong. He didn't even now why he had decided to not to tell the others anything about his injury, they didn't have any race in these two months, he could have recovered well. Then why didn't he tell it the others? Maybe it was his pride, that didn't allow him to do like that. "You should have told us..." Kyousuke said this time very calmly. "You should have told me..." Heath looked up and he saw the same sad expression in Kyousuke's eyes as before. His heart hurt even more than his ankle as he understood that with his lies he hurt Kyousuke. That feeling filled his whole chest and he couldn't escape from it. "When you hid your injury even when you knew that I had discovered it, that hurt me so much... I wanted you to tell me about it, I wanted to be there to help you, to share your pain... but you didn't tell me even when I asked about it...'' Kyousuke said and Heath felt that an other wave of pain was sneaking in his heart. "It hurt..." Kyousuke continued"Heath, it hurt so much" he grabbed Heath's hand with both of his hands and placed them on his heart. "... here..." Heath fel like his heart broke. He didn't even think that he caused so much pain for Kyousuke, especially for Kyousuke. He couldn't forgive himself.

"I'm so sorry, Kyousuke..." he said and felt like he will break out in tears "I'm so sor-..." he wanted to repeat himself but Kyousuke stopped him with a kiss.

"It's alright, Heath. It's alright, as long as you'll never do that again." Kyousuke said and showed a smile. "Don't hide your pain from us ever again... don't hide you pain from _me_ ever again..."

"I won't... I promise" Heath said and Kyousuke kissed him again...

 

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by the 5th episode of the anime, but it took much more time to write it than I had thought it would and it is much worse than I imagined it before. So I'm sorry for this thing here.


End file.
